The present invention relates generally to toy car launchers and, more particularly, to a launcher having a hand grip which can be squeezed to move expandable scissors members forward for the purpose of launching a toy car.
Various types of launchers have been developed in the past which allow a child to propel or launch a toy car forward during play. For example, toy car launchers are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,513,967 issued to Halford et al on Apr. 30, 1985; 4,504,242 issued to Crain et al on Mar. 12, 1985; 4,472,906 issued to Cook et al on Sept. 25, 1984; 4,433,504 issued to Terui on Feb. 28, 1984; 4,423,871 issued to Mucaro on Jan. 3, 1984; 4,418,495 issued to Kennedy et al on Dec. 6, 1983; 4,108,437 issued to De Anda et al on Aug. 22, 1978; 3,952,442 issued to Livesey et al on Apr. 27, 1976; and 3,797,164 issued to Glass et al on Mar. 19, 1974. Belt-type mechanisms used to move a toy vehicle are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,600,850 issued to Summerfield et al on Aug. 24, 1971 and 3,548,534 issued to Beny et al on Dec. 22, 1970. Finally, vehicle propulsion devices are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,998,460 issued to Dyer on Dec. 21, 1976 and 3,641,704 issued to Sims et al on Feb. 15, 1972.
A hand-operated toy car launcher which accelerates the car in a smooth and uniform manner would be particularly desirable because such a launcher could be used to avoid activating or damaging shock or impact-activated mechanisms in the car. None of the above patents discloses such a launcher. A launcher using an expandable parallelogram linkage with scissors members activated by a hand grip could be used to launch a toy car in a uniform manner. Toy guns using expandable linkage have been used in the past, but none of the above patents discloses the use of expandable linkage in a toy launcher. By using the expandable linkage, the rate of acceleration of a car being launched may be controlled by how hard a child squeezes the hand grip. Accordingly, there is a need in the toy manufacturing arts for a launcher having a hand grip which can be squeezed to move expandable scissors members forward in order to launch a toy car.